Liquid metal nano/micro-channels as thermal interface materials for efficient energy saving

Abstract

Thermal interface material (TIMs) pads/sheets with both high elasticity and low thermal resistance are indispensable components for thermal management. In this paper, we propose a facile strategy for the fabrication of highly thermal conductive liquid metal (LM) nano/micro-channels embedded in an elastomeric matrix (polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS). The isolated LM micro-droplets were reshaped and became thermally connected upon applying stress to form conductive LM nano-channels, while improving the thermal conductivity (κ) up to 8.3 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, which is greater than that of most commercial thermal silicone pads (<6 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹). In addition, a series of experiments on a commercial smartphone were performed to evaluate the heat dissipation performance. The results proved that LM thermal pads could not only reduce the temperature of the CPU and the back cover, but could also save energy and enhance the battery running time by as much as 31%.